Extreme Makeover: Blog Edition

Ch-ch-ch-changes! If you’ve been here before and you’re reading this post directly on my site, you’ve probably noticed it looks completely different. If you’re reading this in Google Reader or by email or something similar, cut it out and get on over here or else this post isn’t going to make much sense to you!

In addition to my new look, I also added some features to improve your experience and make grocery shopping, meal planning and recipe sharing even easier! I’ve outlined all the new features below:

1. Brand New Look: The most obvious change is my complete new redesign, courtesy of Melissa Rose Graphic Design Studio! I told Melissa I wanted a fresh, clean look that was professional and cohesive while still reflecting my bubbly personality. I’m so happy with what we came up with! Melissa was great to work with and remained patient with me when I asked a ton of questions or wanted the shade of pink changed multiple times until it matched the vision in my head. She did a great job making the site feel like “me” with my favorite colors, and she even kept a few polka dots around as an homage to my old look. Thanks, Melissa!

2. Ziplist – Recipe Box, Shopping List and Meal Planner: I think you’re all going to be excited about this part. Have you ever wished you could save recipes from all over the web to one central recipe box? Even better, have you imagined you could then select a few of those recipes that you want to make next and have all the ingredients transformed into a printable grocery list with the click of a button? Hey, while you’re dreaming you might as well wish this recipe box also had a mobile app so you could create/carry that grocery list with you anywhere you go (no more “Oops, I forgot the list! What was I here for again…?”). The super-organized among you may even wish for a Meal Planning feature where you can add meals to your queue or schedule them for specific dates.

To save a recipe from Emily Bites, simply scroll down to the bottom of the post and click the blue “save recipe” button (as pictured below):

You’ll need to make an account with Ziplist if you haven’t already, but once you have you’ll be able to access your recipe box from Ziplist.com, their mobile app, or on any partner site. To access it on Emily Bites just click on the Ziplist link in the top navigation bar!

3. Social Media Share Buttons: Love one of my recipes and want to share it with all your friends? It’s easy! At the bottom of each post you’ll now find options to sharethe recipe on Facebook, like the recipe on Facebook, tweet the recipe, or pin it on Pinterest! All you have to do is click the appropriate button and a pop up will appear so you can customize your message. The bottom of each post also has a print-friendly button (which has always been there, but I’m not sure everyone noticed it before).

4. Sponsor Opportunities: Do any of you out there have a blog, etsy shop or web site you want to promote? Emily Bites gets over 360,000 page views a month from over 94,000 unique users – that’s a lot of new potential readers/customers! I’m going to do a separate post to officially announce this so it doesn’t get lost in the shuffle (keep your eyes peeled!), but I wanted to mention it now as well since I’m talking about new features. Click on the Sponsor link in the top navigation bar for more details, pricing and to purchase sidebar ads and share your blog or shop with other Emily Bites readers. I am now accepting September Sponsors!

I hope you’re all as excited about the new look and the new features as I am. What do you think? Leave me a note in the comments below!

Special Note: As always, thank you so much for reading my blog. You can’t imagine how honored I am to have you all making Emily Bites recipes and cooking alongside me. I love reading all your comments (even though I’ve been slow to respond lately – sorry, things have been hectic! I promise I’ll catch up) and discovering the fun twists you add and the reactions of your family members. I have the best readers in the world. Love you all!

I am fairly new to your site (found it via pinterest) but I am loving the new revamp! I am working on feeding my family healthier meals and maintaining a healthy lifestyle, and your recipies and ideas are an awesome way to get it started! Thank you!

oh, ms. anonymous. in order to be such a douche, you could only be Gordon Ramsay. you should consider removing that 100% organic bamboo cheese grater from your rear end before you comment. this post is obviously written for the sake of being mean.

i read most of this blog and i don’t remember anyone asking for less “processed” products. i do know that emilybites has fulfilled several requests that her readers have proposed, and that instead of being backhanded, rude, and childish, you might have made that request in a mature manner, and i’m sure she would have obliged.

she still might, and that speaks more to her character than most anything else.

I’m loving zip list! Downloaded it from here, and already used it at the store this past weekend!

As far as processed product, umm, this is Emily’s blog. You don’t have to follow it if you don’t want to, last I checked. And the beauty of cooking? You can make modifications that fit your lifestyle! A novel idea, but it works! I modify things all the time to fit either what I have on hand or wanting to eat more ‘clean’ or whatever.

Anonymous huh? That’s brave. First of all, the majority of our food goes through some kind of “process”. Second, I personally like recipes that are healthy, affordable, and filling. Emily has definitely hit that target.

Julie U. replied: — August 7th, 2012 @ 1:16 pm

Because I don’t post a lot, and am not sure how to make sure my name shows up, this is Julie U.

From Anonymous: “more people might follow the recipes you post.” I am fascinated by how Anonymous has figured out how to put cameras in everybody’s kitchen to know if people are/ are not making the recipes. I agree with the above posters- if A wants a different type of recipe, he/she shouldn’t let the door hit ‘em on the way out. Though E, if there is some piece of technology that is forcing A’s computer to stay on your site at all times, maybe we should look into that, huh? Emily- maybe you could post a recipe for etiquette.

Adam K replied: — August 7th, 2012 @ 1:54 pm

Yeah! Lets all eat Organic Food! Lets pay 150% markups (nearly 2/3 of which is just the grocer taking an extra cut because they know we’re dumb enough to pay it) for food that is EIGHT TIMES more likely to be recalled than packaged foods from major manufacturers! But I heard that eating listeria is good because it increases my immune system’s resistance to listeria!

Lets all go buy food from companies who don’t have to follow federal safety standards because they know they’re too small for anyone to ever come check! But they’re small, so I’m sure the owners are only in it to make the world a better place and not at all to make as much money as they can off of stupid rich city folk like us, whom the farmers secretly hate because we look down on them as uneducated bumpkins who spend all day in the corn.

Lets all eat ONLY Whole Foods, and just ignore the studies that show that there there is not one shred of scientific evidence that eating more whole foods will make you weigh any less without also consuming fewer calories (a “doctor” once told me that the only factor – EVER – that has been shown to actually effect weight is the ratio of calories you consume to the calories you burn – what a crackpot!!! LOLZ!).

And hey! Lets cook all of our foods with unprocessed fats! Let’s see, that rules out butter (churned), olive oil (pressed), any other oil (some process or another), and leaves us with lard that I cut myself off of the pork or beef! Yay for cooling all of my food in lard, which despite being filled with trans fat (a poison), saturated fat, and cholesterol, must be the healthiest cooking fat, because it is unprocessed! Logic Logic Logic!!!!

Aren’t you glad we’re smart enough to eat only unprocessed foods! Yumzers! Look at all the fat people eating frozen spinach and diet coke! ha! Lozers.

Jessie replied: — August 7th, 2012 @ 4:50 pm

It’s the EXACT OPPOSITE of what you said anonymous! I WOULDN’T come to her website if she used more organic, less processed food. I come to Emily’s website because she posts affordable weight watchers recipes. Organic is not affordable for me. Her recipes that are using 4 or 5 different cheap ingredients helps me lose weight, but not break the bank. There are plenty of websites out there that use only organic ingredients. What do you care if she doesn’t?

Have you heard of Pepperplate.com? It’s one website that is used as a place to collect all of my the recipes I find online. There’s an applet that you can download, so the recipe gets moved directly into Pepperplate. When I first started using it, I asked tech support (who I think created the website) to add your blog to the list. Its still easy to import your recipes, though.

Thanks so much for all the hard work you put into this blog and your recipes!!!

Emily I LOVE your blog! I’ve been following it for a LONG time now and I have loved almost every single recipe I’ve tried! Also…adding ziplist is AMAZING. I am heading to the grocery store now and my grocery list was already made for me! Love it Thanks for this blog! Keep it up!